ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a rational and non-destructive procedure in order to get an estimate of the probabilistic nature of the compressive strength of a historic masonry structure, and to model that variability. Since compressive strength is most fundamental for masonry, it focuses on the estimation of the probabilistic model related to compressive strength. As codes are necessarily conservative and also are generally aimed at design with modern masonry materials, the use of practice recommend values may lead to inaccurate reliability assessment in the case of historical structures. The expected service life of a historical structure was more than that of a new structure designed by codes, because historical structures were expected to be preserved for future generations. Reliability assessment is a procedure for evaluating the reliability of an existing building, based on information gathered about the building, from material properties to structural layout.
